


Who Loves the Sun

by L3ftOfCent3r



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: And hair, Drugs, Gen, Sweeney, and Rock-n-Roll, ish, song-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 22:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11217651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L3ftOfCent3r/pseuds/L3ftOfCent3r
Summary: At Jack's Crocodile Bar, Mad Sweeney plays a song on the jukebox. A song he heard back in the 70's that reminds him of carpet-lined vans, marijuana and moon-children. And also, Shadow Moon.





	Who Loves the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a mix of book-verse and TV-verse. Mostly book-verse as Pablo Schreiber didn't play the jukebox. This story is just silly speculation into why Mad Sweeney chose the song "Who Loves the Sun" by The Velvet Underground.  
> I own nothing but a growing infatuation for a 6-foot-something leprechaun.  
> Thanks for reading!

**Somewhere in America. 1972.**

 

Mad Sweeney walked along the side of the road with one thumb jutted-out towards it. His other hand flicked open the top of his Zippo lighter and thumbed the flint wheel to light the cigarette between his teeth. A green station-wagon with wood paneling sped past him, followed by an even faster Chevy Camaro. Mad Sweeney pocketed the Zippo and took the cigarette between his long fingers as he blew a defiant puff of smoke at the passing cars. A small pick-up truck slowed as it neared him then, and Mad Sweeney held his thumb a little higher. The driver gave him a once-over as the truck rolled passed him—no doubt spotting the cuts on his face and blood stains on his shirt—and the truck quickly accelerated again.

“C'MON!” he wailed as he kicked-up some road dust at the retreating truck. “It's fucken hotter than a steel-welder's ass!”

The sun had been barreling down on him for some miles now, and he had already taken off his denim jacket to cool himself. The jacket hung over his shoulder as he took another puff from the cigarette that only warmed him more, but calmed him some. A faint melodic beat echoed off the road behind him and Mad Sweeney cut a glance over his shoulder. He heard the music blasting from it before the vehicle appeared over a hill, headed towards him. Mad Sweeney took a drag from his cigarette and held his arm out straight with a hopeful thumb pointed towards the sky. A van flew past him in a blur of melodies and colors before swerving over to the side of road and coming to a screeching halt.

Mad Sweeney's arm fell to his side and his resulting sigh was filled with more smoke than relief. He took another long drag from his cigarette before he resumed walking towards the colorful van. Large multi-colored flowers were painted on its body along with the words “love” and “peace”. As he approached, he was greeted by two grinning girls hanging out of the back window. One wore a skimpy halter top that barely covered her breasts and the other a low-cut peasant blouse. Mad Sweeney flashed them a crooked smile and felt a little better about his luck of hitching a ride with hippies.

“Hey, man!” the driver, a long-haired boy with crimson glasses, greeted as he leaned passed the kid in the passenger seat—an equally long-haired boy with no shirt and a braided rope around his neck. “Where ya headed?” the driver asked.

“West.” Mad Sweeney replied as he glanced off into the distance, not wanting to elaborate.

“Groovy.” came the driver's easy reply, “We're headed to San Francisco. Hop in!”

The girl in the skimpy halter top opened the sliding van door. Mad Sweeney stomped his cigarette into the ground and then climbed in. The inside of the van was covered in carpet and, not surprisingly, smelled of marijuana and incense. He took a seat between the two girls at their beckoning and was then subject to a flurry of questions about the fresh cut across the bridge of his nose and the way he wore his beard. Mad Sweeney didn't bother to mention being a leprechaun or a frequenter of bar brawls or anything of the sort. Instead, he distracted them with his coin tricks, making his golden sun coin disappear and reappear at his will.

“Let me see that.” the girl wearing the halter top said as she leaned in to him to reach for the coin.

Her hair was brown and long and it draped over his arm as her finger traced the surface of the coin. Mad Sweeney held it tightly between his thumb and his forefinger, not willing to part with it.

“It has a sun on it,” the girl mused, “Is it real gold?”

“'Course it's real gold.” he said as he disappeared it into the air, sending it back to the Hoarde and away from prying fingers.

“Anyone want a joint?” the driver asked from the front of the van.

The girls giggled in acceptance of the offer and the kid in the passenger seat crawled towards the back of the van to hand them each a rolled cigarette, already burning at one end. The shirtless kid held one out to Mad Sweeney, then.

“I like the hairdo, man.” he said with a grin as Mad Sweeney waved off his offering, “It's been a while since I've seen a Mohawk.”

Mad Sweeney rolled his eyes.

“That's because the Beatles came along with their fucken mop-tops and the whole fucken world forgot how a man should look.”

The kid frowned and went back to his seat at the front of the van.

“That Paul McCartney is so dreamy!” the girl in the peasant blouse crooned.

Her hair was blonde and when she took a drag from her joint, she coughed.

“John Lennon's the dreamy one.” the brunette argued.

Mad Sweeney scowled and reconsidered his luck as the girl at each side of him began bickering and swooning over the Beatles. A new song began to play on the radio then. It filled the van with harmonies and pretty little melodic hooks that made him want to slam his fist into the dashboard. It silenced the bickering though. It was the kind of silence that you can feel and that usually signaled trouble.

“What's wrong Moonchild?” the brunette asked the blonde girl.

Mad Sweeney slowly turned his head in her direction—more from the nausea over the name “Moonchild” than his concern for her well-being.

“It's this song,” the blonde called Moonchild whimpered, “It reminds me of Tim.”

The girl began crying then, and Mad Sweeney found himself focusing on the lyrics of the song—if for no other reason than to tune out the blubbering.

_Who loves the wind_  
_Who cares that it makes breezes_  
_Who cares what it does_  
_Since you broke my heart_

The brunette in the skimpy halter top practically crawled across his lap to reach the crying Moonchild. Mad Sweeney cursed as she dropped her lit joint on his pants and the ashes burned him. He frantically patted out the lit ashes and brushed the joint off his pants.

“Are ya fucken thick?” Mad Sweeney swore.

He glared threateningly at the two girls who paid him no mind as the song played on and the girls cried together. With a growl, Mad Sweeney moved to the empty seat behind the driver to try to calm himself.

_Baa Baa Ba Baaa_  
_Who loves the sun_  
_Baa Baa Ba Baaa_  
_Not everyone_

The shirtless kid held his arm out towards Mad Sweeney, offering him a joint once more. Mad Sweeney took it this time and puffed on it as he sunk back into his seat. His eyes closed and his head leaned on the head rest as the music filled his ears. With the joint between his teeth and the smoke filling his lungs he seemed to appreciate the song a little more.

_Who loves the sun_  
_Who cares that it is shining_  
_Who cares what it does_  
_Since you broke my heart_  
_Baa Baa Ba Baaa_  
_Who loves the sun_

For a moment, Mad Sweeney wondered how a song about heartbreak could sound so chipper, but he quickly decided that it didn't matter and he certainly didn't care. The flower-covered van sped on down the road, pumping out melody after melody that would soon just become a fuzzy memory lost in a haze of smoke and sounds.

 

**Jack's Crocodile Bar. Present Day.**

 

Mad Sweeney braced his hand against the jukebox as he flipped through the playlist. Across the room to his back, Wednesday and his new man were arguing back and forth. He could hear them over the crowd and the clanking of bottles, even. The man named Shadow Moon kept up his protest, and he was right to! Mad Sweeney had warned him that Wednesday was a hustler, hadn't he?

“ _...I want to go to Laura's Funeral. I want to say goodbye...”_

Mad Sweeney's jaw tightened as he overheard the words and he flipped through the playlist with added force. The poor gimp had just lost his wife to Wednesday's convoluted plot, and unbeknownst to him, was soon to lose a fight to his Irish fists! 'Bad fucken luck.' Mad Sweeney thought.

A sliver of guilt crept up inside of him like a junebeetle burrowing inside his ear canal. He had half a mind to walk out of that bar, but he knew he was already neck deep in the whole mess. Mad Sweeney paused as he read one of the tracks on the jukebox's playlist.

_Who Loves the Sun by The Velvet Underground._

The song's name drug-up some foggy memory of a carpet-lined van, marijuana and moon-children. Mad Sweeney vaguely recalled that it was a break-up song. He thought of Shadow Moon and of his dead wife and decided that few things broke-up a relationship more absolutely than death.

“ _Very Good,”_ he heard Wednesday say, _“Then we have a compact. And we are agreed.”_

Mad Sweeney huffed-out a breath as he shoved some quarters into the jukebox. He made his song selection and listened to the mechanical shuffle. Inside the machine, the record was shifted on to the turntable and the needle came down over the record like the axe that was about to drop on Shadow Moon.

“ _So, one last glass of evil, vile fucking mead to seal our deal...”_

Mad Sweeney took a stumbling step away from the jukebox and called-out an order for a glass of Southern Comfort and coke. Behind him, the record began to spin and the bar filled with a familiar melodic strumming.

_Who loves the sun_  
_Who cares that it makes plants grow_  
_Who cares what it does_  
_Since you broke my heart_

Mad Sweeney passed a sweeping glance over the man called Shadow Moon and spotted confusion on the man's face as the song played. Mad Sweeney took a drink from the glass he was handed and thought to himself: 'Good. It's best not to find clarity in times as fucked as these.'

Shadow Moon didn't know it yet, but the world he knew was about to come shattering down on him like a house made of glass, and a perpetual state of confusion was all that might save him from going mad himself.

Mad Sweeney watched the dark eyed man fiddle with a coin as the out-of-place song that was meant to warn him of future deception and speak to his broken heart went unheard.

_Baa Baa Ba Baaa_  
_Who loves the sun_  
_Baa Baa Ba Baaa_  
_Not everyone_

'It's back to business, then'. Mad Sweeney thought as he cracked his knuckles, unseen and unheard, loosening his hands up for coin tricks or fist fights—whichever came first. And Shadow Moon was sure to love the sun, want to or no, because he was soon to be seeing stars instead of sunshine. Mad Sweeney could already feel the joy rising in his veins in anticipation of the fight. And oh yes, there would be a fight.

 

 


End file.
